Barred Lawmakers Shouldn't Be Unseated: Michael Tien

Roundtable lawmaker, Michael Tien, said that four pan-democrat lawmakers barred from running in the Legco elections should not be unseated in the coming year.

Tien said that the last few months have seen a lot of unprecedented events from the enactment of the national security bill to the postponement of the elections by one year due to the Covid-19 situation.

"A lot of people find things to have been too fast and too out of their expectation," he said, adding that for the sake of balancing social perceptions, it might be better to just "let it be".

Tien, who is also a delegate to the National People's Congress, said he hadn't presented his view to the deputy director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Zhang Xiaoming, who's reportedly in Hong Kong collecting views on the matter.

He said he has his ways to communicate with Beijing's liaison office.

Tien's comments come after Hong Kong's sole delegate to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, Tam Yiu-chung, hinted that incumbent lawmakers disqualified from running in the 2020 Legco elections may not be able to stay on for one year, should legislators be asked to do so because of the postponed polls.

But former Legco president Tsang Yok-sing had argued that it would be a disproportionate to unseat them.

Last month, 12 Legco hopefuls from the pro-democracy camp – including four lawmakers – were barred from running in the polls that were originally slated to take place on September 6.